Twelve Tinseltime Tips for Tormented Twosomes
Finding yourself twiddling your thumbs with a sequestered sweetie over Covid Christmas? Try these tips for surviving the 12 days of Christmas as a trapped twosome:
The First Day of Christmas
This is Christmas Day, so open your presents together. If you find yourself wondering why your beloved has bought you a particularly strange item, maybe keep your musings to yourself — unless they bring it up first.
Keep firmly in mind the theory that gift giving is not necessarily about what you want to get, or what you might actually need, but about “the gesture.” All that matters is that your sweetie’s heart was in the right place (even if mental acuity was elsewhere that day).
The funny thing about gifts is that “gift” is one of those two-way words, which also means “poison” in German. You don’t want to begin your 12 days of sequestration by exchanging poisons, right? (If poisoned, please skip ahead to Day 3.)
The Second Day of Christmas
It’s Boxing Day! If you’re not a rabid hockey fan, let’s hope that you got some serious new work earmuffs for Christmas and/or your hockey-happy partner’s got headphones because . . . it’s the annual return of the World Junior Hockey Tournament! Hooray! Or maybe your household has other sports pleasures to endure?
Tip for hockey fans: Watching hockey while wearing headphones is helpful for the relationship, especially after five or six hours. Extra points if the watcher can avoid sudden body movements and shouting that can startle those peacefully getting through their silent night, holy night Covid Christmas.
The Third Day of Christmas
Try drinking? To distinguish this from purely casual drinking, put your skills to work at mixing a drink you’ve never made before, then you’ll have at least put in an effort, and anything that comes out of it will not be seen as a source of concern but as an accomplishment. If your local Taqueria offers a mid-day Marguerita called “La Medicina,” crafted from tequila reposado, cointreau, ginger, and lime, you might try your hand at making it at home. A spoonful of medicine will make the long stretch of confinement go down merrily.
The Fourth Day of Christmas
Time to break out the cookbook time capsule. Take a trip back in time by dusting off an old cookbook and reliving that culinary era of your lives together. If you can find an eggplant at the grocery store, The Moosewood Cookbook will send you back to the youthful and earnest vegetarianism of the 1980s, when everyone salted their raw eggplants to sweat the bitterness out.
The Fifth Day of Christmas
See if you can remember how to play chess. If you fail, you can always re-binge “The Queen’s Gambit.” Careful with the drinking though.
The Sixth Day of Christmas
Without pulling out a calendar, take turns guessing what day of the week it is. By this time, you might find yourselves wandering around hung over, full of cheese and somewhat dazed, so this might be more of a challenge than you think.
The Seventh Day of Christmas
Flick fight competition! Each contestant takes turns curling their index finger taut against their thumb and then releasing it in a “flick” against the forearm of their opponent. To up the stakes, try flicking higher up on the inside of the arm where the skin is softer and more sensitive.
The Eighth Day of Christmas
Go outside and get some fresh air before it gets dark!
The Ninth Day of Christmas
Time to try drinking again.
The Tenth Day of Christmas
Congratulations! You’re almost there. Take a day off.
The Eleventh Day of Christmas
Competitive vacuum cleaner dancing. Who’s got the best moves? Trick your partner Huckleberry Finn style into vacuuming the whole place.
The Twelfth Day of Christmas
Rejoice! End the confinement by saying five nice things about your partner and hope that they have five nice things to say about you. If five nice things are hard to come up with after 12 days, just remember — people in quarantine would still have two more days to go!
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
By the way, no time like the present to get to work on your online marketing and blog projects. Let me turn your existing IGTV, TikTok, FB Live, and other videos into blog posts for you. I can even do it over the holidays, because . . . I'm not going anywhere! It's an offer so new, it's not even on my website. Contact me to find out more.